Great news … I have just heard from Jeff Smith ( one of the ASUG EAM SIG Chairs ) that ASUG is launching a four part SAP EAM webcast series this fall.

They have pulled together four great webcasts that will run from September to December 2013.

The ASUG Enterprise Asset Management Community is delivering these virtual webcasts as part of their efforts to provide year round content to their community members. Jeff said that ASUG is also opening this series to non-ASUG members.

If you are interested in these webcasts and you are not an ASUG member, please contact Kaela Altman Kaela.Altman@asug.com; she can get you the details to attend according to Jeff.

Please pass this on to others in your organization that might be interested in attending. This is a great way to improve your SAP EAM knowledge at no cost.

Jeff also suggested that it is very useful to book a conference room in your organization and invite people to watch the session together, and then discuss as a group the learning’s from the webcast and how you could put these into action in your organization.

Here are dates, topics, links to the registration page for ASUG Members, and detailed abstracts for these sessions for these free webcasts. This should be a great educational series that the ASUG EAM Community has pulled together for both its members and a special opportunity for non members to participate.

The new ISO 55000 series on Asset Management is asking more than ever before for establishing an integrating asset management system. This is involving information technology spanning the whole lifecycle of physical assets and addressing cost, risk, and performance. Additionally, we are living in a period of major and disruptive changes to technology, processes, and business models. Assets are getting smarter and smarter, allowing for machine-to-machine communication; boundaries between manufacturers, service providers, owners and operators are blurring more and more. Achim will elaborate on how SAP Enterprise Asset Management can help withthe new challenges and also gain benefits from the new boundary conditions. This will include mobile, in-memory analytics, asset visualization, and other pieces of functionality.

Lessons:

* Key content of the ISO 55000 series

* Asset Management and the influences of hyper-connection and the industrial internet

Dr. Achim Krüger started his career as an officer with the German Air Force. He held several positions in the areas of maintenance of helicopters and transport aircraft as well as systems engineering, before he worked in higher commands as a logistics general staff officer. Joining SAP Germany in 2002, Achim first served as a consultant before establishing the SAP for Defense & Security industry portfolio at SAP AG. After several other duties in solution management and development, Achim now serves as vice president for SAP’s solutions in the area of Enterprise Asset Management. Achim obtained a degree in aerospace engineering from the University of the Federal Armed Forces at Munich as well as a degree in economics from the University of Hagen. For his thesis on the fatigue life behavior of metallic materials, he was awarded a doctorate in engineering.

More executive attention is being paid to asset management systems than ever before. Asset Intensive companies realize what asset failures are costing them. During quarterly calls senior executives are reporting hundreds of millions of Lost Opportunity Value (LOV) because of unplanned outages due to failing assets. The real fear is that one of these incidents may land them on the six o’clock news. So cross-functional teams are being assembled to build a scalable work process to manage asset criticality, strategy methodology, and maintenance plan execution and modification. Their mission? Remove as much uncertainty about the future as possible.

We will discuss how companies are simplifying business processes in order to support asset criticality, develop asset strategies, and improve reliability. They are writing standards, guidance documents, and work processes. We’ll show how they are investing in EAM to improve how they manage data quality and master data for technical objects to enable those work processes. You will also learn how SAP and Meridium are being used to optimize maintenance and monitor plans to balance spend and mitigate business risk.

Lessons:

– The simplification of business processes for successful asset strategy management

– Data quality, data hierarchy, and event history utilization is central to the sustainment of asset visibility, risk and performance

Marc LaPlante – Meridium

As a pre-sales Solution Consultant at Meridium, Marc’s primary tasks include surveying business and technical needs, work process facilitation, software demos, and periodically speaking at events in the field of asset management. He works as a member of a core team for APM software project implementations for asset-intensive organizations. Marc is also a member of the US Technical Advisory Group to PC 251 and works alongside some of the finest minds in the field of asset management. He is helping to write the ISO standard 55000 which is expected in early in 2014. Marc earned his Diploma in Chemical Engineering Technology from Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1992. He also continued with his professional development by attending the Centre for Maintenance Optimization and Reliability Engineering at the University of Toronto. He came to Meridium after 14 years working in the field of condition monitoring. He has had exposure to various industries from energy, resource mining, pulp and paper, petroleum, petrochemical, manufacturing and power generation.

“Wisdom from the North American SAP EAM Community – SAP Centric EAM 2013”

For the past nine years, the Eventful Group’s SAP-Centric EAM North American Event has brought together the EAM community to network, share ideas and experiences, and explore solutions for Enterprise Asset Management. In this session you will hear key insights from top North American customer success stories from this year’s SAP-Centric EAM event that was held in Huntington Beach, California. You will learn what their challenges where, what worked, how they solved their challenges and most importantly how you can turn these insights into action in your organization.

Wisdom shared will be from both from an EAM Business and a Technology perspective. Don’t miss this opportunity to also learn about what will be happening at SAP Centric EAM 2014 in Austin.

Lessons

– Top 10 North American SAP EAM Community issues, solutions to resolve these and information sources

– What are the EAM Business Imperatives that you need to focus on today

– What are the key tools from both a SAP EAM and Partner Ecosystem perspective to improve EAM in your organization

Norm Poynter, Nexen

Norm Is a management consultant, specializing in SAP PM along with Integration to engineering and plant process systems. For the past 16 years he has been involved in continuous improvement, best practices, plant turnarounds, re-engineering, process improvements, process safety and operational excellence development & implementation projects. Norm has held technical & functional roles with Agrium, NOVA Chemicals, DuPont, Canexus and Nexen Inc, Marathon Oil, Suncor. Today, Norm focuses on Knowledge Execution Management and Asset Information Management Systems through the creation of sustainable communities of practice. Key passions for Norm are the enabling of standardization, consistency and productivity through better use of grass root technologies like SAP.

Jeff Smith, Fairfax Water

Jeff Smith has been with Fairfax Water (FW) for over 24 years where he worked his way up the plant maintenance department from a plant mechanic, plant maintenance assistant supervisor and plant maintenance planner/scheduler. Jeff was the EAM team lead when FW implemented SAP in 2009. After implementation, was promoted to business process analyst working in FW (SAP) Solution Support Center. This has allowed Jeff to gain valuable SAP experience with PM, MM, & FI modules. Jeff is also Fairfax Water’s SAP testing lead. Jeff is the ASUG Plant Maintenance SIG Program Chair.

Master Data has been entered into your SAP PM/EAM system. Your system has gone live or has been live for years. Work notifications and work orders are being created. NOW WHAT? This presentation will explore the Cycle of Communication – the flow of information and corrective feedback between the operations, maintenance coordinators, maintenance shops, and engineering departments for the continuous improvement of your SAP PM/EAM system. Key aspects of work notifications, work orders, technical findings, and Standard Analysis Plant Maintenance Information Systems (MCI reports) will be explored.

Lessons:

– Understanding how and where PM data is used is key

– Start with the end in mind

– Everyone needs feedback

Alex Lackner, Dow Corning

Alexander (Alex) Lackner holds a mechanical engineering B.S. degree from Michigan Technological University. He has twelve years of experience working in various project management, reliability engineering, and manufacturing engineering positions within Dow Corning. Alex is currently the team leader of the Enterprise Asset Management and Integrity (NDT Inspection) departments at Dow Corning’s Carrollton, Kentucky, manufacturing plant. He is also leading a number of Six Sigma Blackbelt projects that focus on the optimization, implementation, and data accuracy of the SAP Plant Maintenance and Materials Management (MROS) modules.

Improved Failure Coding in SAP – Owens Corning assures Data Quality

Owens Corning’s implementation of SAP ECC 6.0 from v3.1i has provided an opportunity to improve current practices and develop new solutions to enhance reliability in SAP PM with assistance from Meridium. A major opportunity identified is in equipment catalog profile and failure coding. Unique catalog profile design forms the code base and provides for asset category, class and type searches, reporting, and analysis. Using ISO-14224-2006 as a model, the solutions include Owens Corning’s Reliability Work Practices (RWP) methodology and Meridium’s best practices for taxonomy and event coding. Using master library concepts, minimal SAP customization results in simplified user interfaces that assure data quality in detection, cause, and activity codes, and reduce asset object part and damage code mismatches. This enables enhanced reliability analysis and standardized maintenance and operational reporting. This presentation will cover the project’s history, key concepts and functionality, and current implementation.

Lessons:

– Qualitative asset history

– Standardized coding

– Standardized asset classification

Bob Kazar, Owens Corning

Bob Kazar has 30 years of Reliability and Maintenance experience in positions such as craftsman, maintenance manager, maintenance engineer and project manager in various industries like food and beverage processing, packaging equipment and building materials. Bob holds certifications in Project Management (PMP), is a Certified Maintenance and Reliability Professional (CMRP) and currently an officer in the Society for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals. He has a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and Bachelors in Information Systems. Currently Bob is a Reliability Project Manager and an IT Architect for the Owens Corning Corporate Manufacturing Reliability Group responsible for Enterprise Asset Management, Reliability Work Processes and the SAP Plant Maintenance Module.